Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg

Life

Early life

Sophie Amalie was born at the Herzberg Castle, in Herzberg am Harz. Her parents were George, Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg, and Anne Eleonore of Hesse-Darmstadt. Nothing is known of her childhood.

Sophie Amalie married Prince Frederick in Castle Glücksburg on 1 October 1643. The marriage was arranged in 1640, as it was considered suitable for the current situation of the groom: he was, at that point, Prince-bishop of Bremen and not heir to the throne, and was not expected to succeed to the throne. It is believed to be a political match, though the exact purpose of it is unknown. They had eight children, including King Christian V of Denmark and Ulrike Eleonora of Denmark who married King Charles XI of Sweden.

The couple settled in Bremen. In 1646–47, they lived in humble circumstances in Flensborg, after having been forced to flee Bremen during the war between Denmark–Norway and Sweden. In 1647, Frederick was elected heir to the Danish throne, and the following year, she followed him to Denmark.

Queen

In 1648, Frederick and Sophie Amalie became king and queen of Denmark and Norway.

As her husband was introverted, she became the centre of a sumptuous court life, with exclusive luxury items and grand parties, which shed glory on the royal power. Queen Sophie Amalie made a pioneer cultural act in relation to the court parties by replacing the old medieval court entertainments with opera and ballet, which was thus introduced in Denmark by her at the court festivities. She enjoyed fashion, parties and theatre, arranged masquerades and made the French taste fashionable in Denmark. She remodeled the court after a French and German pattern. In 1649, a large order of items arrived for the new court life she arranged, followed also by new staff and new positions. She hired a German chapel master, Kaspar Förster, a French violin orchestra, a French ballet master, D. de Pilloy, and a French court singer and dancer, Anne Chabanceau de La Barre, and a French theatre company was engaged to perform French theater. Sophie Amalie did not understand the Danish language, but spoke German and French, took lessons in singing and dancing by instructors from France and Italy, was dressed by French maids in French fashion, conversed with her children in French and had a French chaplain, and as the first queen of Denmark took a French motto: „En Dieu mon espérance". Ballet, masquerades and theatre performances were performed, and she and her children participated in ballets and amateur theatre with the nobility; in 1655, she performed five different parts in a ballet at the same occasion. She was interested in literature and composed a library of French, German and Italian writers. She was noted to have great disputes with her Catholic brother John Frederick, in which her husband was called to participate in the debate.

Sophie Amalie was described as a charming beauty with entertaining wit and artistic taste, also in private correspondence not intended for her to see. A Swedish guest described her as "a lovely young person" and a Frenchman described her in 1649: "This princess was tall, blonde, with a very attractive complexion, mild and very accommodating toward strangers; she had a great taste for France, and she had everything it could give her." Sophia of Hanover was impressed by her and said of her that "her goodness and great accomplishments won over all hearts to her", while the French envoy noted that the queen's considerable charm was in fact reserved for those "which belongs to her party or are of use to her interests." The Spanish envoy Bernardino de Rebolledo dedicated sonnets to her in which he described her as a seraph.

Political influence

Queen Sophie Amalie was described as ambitious and was well known to participate in state affairs, with the blessing of her husband, and influence policy as his adviser. Her great influence upon her husband was widely known already before he became king: before Frederick had succeeded to the throne, a satire circulated in which this was caricatured in the form of a mock question: "Can a husband make any decisions whatever without the consent of his wife? Signed Duke Frederick."

Her influence is contributed to the fact that she attracted her husband as well as was in possession of a willpower and energy exceeding his, as well as to the fact that they had the same political goals: "With her vivacious nature she understood how to attract her husband, with her greater decisiveness and more fiery temperament she energized his more careful nature to action, and above all she was given power, because she wanted it with all her flaming soul."

The three main political goals of Sophia Amalie and Frederick III were to defeat the power of the nobility, symbolized by the Svogerpartiet (Son-in-law's Party); to defeat the Swedes; and to expand royal power into absolutism, to which the queen gathered followers through her court festivities and by creating a net of contacts by handing out favors.

Queen Sophie Amalie was from the start of her husband's reign famously involved in the power struggle between the crown and the high nobility, symbolized by the so-called Svogerpartiet ('Son's-in-law Party'), composed by six noblemen married to daughters of her father-in-law from his second morganatic marriage with Kirsten Munk, among which Corfitz Ulfeldt, married to Leonora Christina Ulfeldt, was the leading member. Upon her husband's accession she became the first queen in over 30 years, and she could never stand the half-sisters of her spouse, who had fulfilled the position of first lady during their father's reign. This conflict had begun already during the celebration dinner of the king's accession to the throne in Copenhagen Castle 6 July 1648 with an incident Sophie Amalie and Leonora Christine: the queen being unusually quiet, Leonora Christine criticized her for her silence, after which the queen participated in conversation, but notably fell silent every time Leonora Christine joined in. By 1651, the Svogerpartiet, was crushed, its members disperse, the Ulfeldt couple left for Sweden and their property was confiscated.

Queen Dowager

In 1670, Frederick III died and was succeeded by her eldest son Christian V. Her son the king did what he could to curb her influence in state affairs, which was evidently not easy: in 1671, he wrote to Griffenfeld: "God be praised, the queen dowager has left for Hirsholm today, so I need no longer hear: 'What do I hear now?'"

Despite her son's dislike over her interference, she remained a factor which was taken into consideration in Danish politics, and Griffenfeld was careful to keep in her good graces. It is noted that Griffenfeld assisted her in her ambition to have her younger son Georg elected king of Poland. Griffenfeld and Sophie Amalie also worked in securing peace with Sweden during the Scanian War, as Sophie Amalie wished for peace with Sweden and its ally France because her favorite Catholic brother was Francophile and because she wished for her daughter Ulrika Eleonora to marry the Swedish king. The fall of Griffenfeld was, therefore, a great misfortune for Sophie Amalie and her political position, and it attracted great attention when the queen dowager demonstratively left the capital after the sudden arrest of Griffenfeld. His later pardon is credited with her influence. The Peace of 1680 was a great joy for her, as it resulted in the desired wedding between her daughter and the Swedish king. She accompanied Ulrika Eleonora to Kronborg, but it was noted how she could not make herself to show her daughter the ceremony due to her future rank as queen.

Her relationship to her daughter-in-law Charlotte Amalie was not a good one. Sophie Amalie was reportedly most unwilling to surrender her position as queen and her precedence as the first lady of the court to her daughter-in-law, and was only with great difficulty made to vacate the queen's apartment to her successor.

Her daughter-in-law was however not willing to give up her rank, and the precedence conflict between the queen and the queen dowager was prolonged for years: reportedly, the queen dowager demanded that the foreign ambassadors call to be introduced to her first rather than the queen, otherwise, she would have them barred from her court, a situation which created such difficulty that the king sometimes solved the matter by leaving for another palace with his wife so that the queen and the queen dowager would not be present at the same time and thus the rank conflict avoided.

Sophie Amalie is known to have assured the continuing imprisonment of Leonora Christine also as a widow. Upon the accession of Christian V, his wife Charlotte Amalie successfully asked him a promise to release Leonora Christine if the expected child was a son, and when she did give birth to a son in 1671, she called in the promise. When Sophie Amalie was informed, however, she managed to have the king retract his promise by refusing to attend the christening of the crown prince. When Leonora Christine's daughter Ellen Kristine petitioned her for her mother's release, Sophie Amalie successfully asked her son the king to banish Ellen Kristine from the nation.